This landmark 1990 report describes the findings of the two year project to articulate an international expert consensus definition of critical thinking, including its core cognitive skills. The experts identify the characteristics of an ideal critical thinker, and present specific recommendations relating to critical thinking instruction and assessment."The Critical Thinking Movement" of the 1980s witnessed a growing accord that the heart of education lies exactly where traditional advocates of a liberal education always said it was -- in the processes of inquiry, learning and thinking rather than in the accumulation of disjointed skills and senescent information. By the decade's end the movement to infuse the K-12 and post-secondary curricula with critical thinking (CT) had gained remarkable momentum. The momentum continues to build now, in the 21st Century, as employers, educators, and policy-makers continue to endorse the development of students' critical thinking as an essential educational priority. Then, and perhaps still today, the successes of "The Critical Thinking Movement" raised vexing questions for educators: Which skills, exactly, are the ones that comprise the core group of critical thinking skills? What pedagogical approaches are most effective to teach for critical thinking, and not simply about critical thinking? What assessment strategies and tools work best for the assessment of critical thinking as a required student learning outcome?
When asked by the individual professor or teacher seeking to introduce CT into her own classroom, such questions are difficult enough. But they took on social, fiscal, and political dimensions when asked by campus curriculum committees, school district offices, boards of education, and the educational testing and publishing industries. Given the central role played by philosophers in articulating the value, both individual and social, of CT, in analyzing the concept of CT, in designing college level academic programs in CT, and in assisting with efforts to introduce CT into the K-12 curriculum, it is little wonder that the American Philosophical Association, through its Committee on Pre-College Philosophy, took great interest in the CT movement and its impact on the profession. In December of 1987 that committee asked Dr. Peter Facione to serve as the lead investigator to coordinate an international effort to determine the extent to which experts agreed on the definition of critical thinking for purposes of college level teaching and assessment. The result became known as "the Delphi Report," a document which continues to influence critical thinking theory, teaching, and assessment in the full spectrum of academic disciplines and professional fields.
CONSENSUS STATEMENT REGARDING CRITICAL THINKING AND
THE IDEAL CRITICAL THINKER
"We understand critical thinking to be purposeful, self-regulatory judgment that results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgment is based.
CT is essential as a tool of inquiry. As such, CT is a liberating force in education and a powerful resource in one's personal and civic life. While not synonymous with good thinking, CT is a pervasive and self-rectifying human phenomenon.
The ideal critical thinker is habitually inquisitive, well-informed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fair-minded in evaluation, honest in facing personal biases, prudent in making judgments, willing to reconsider, clear about issues, orderly in complex matters, diligent in seeking relevant information, reasonable in the selection of criteria, focused in inquiry, and persistent in seeking results which are as precise as the subject and the circumstances of inquiry permit.
Thus, educating good critical thinkers means working toward this ideal. It combines developing CT skills with nurturing those dispositions which consistently yield useful insights and which are the basis of a rational and democratic society.
